South Of Midnight’s Lead On Hazel: ‘Black Women Have Strong Stories’ That Deserve To Be Told

South of Midnight is one of my favorite games of the year. As someone who has spent many sweaty, mosquito-filled summer days in southern Louisiana, eating countless links of boudin and pounds of crawfish, I knew before even playing South of Midnight that it would be a special game to me. My dad is Cajun, as is his extended (and I mean, extended, ya’ll) family, and South of Midnight is one of the few games that explores this unique southern culture. 

Of course, South of Midnight fuses a lot more than just Cajun culture and third-person action gameplay. It tells a story intimately in conversation with Cajun and Creole folklore, the Southern Black experience, and the fables of the Gullah people, amongst others. It’s a rich tapestry of storytelling about culture, ancestry, grief, trauma, and perhaps more than any other theme, love. Specifically, the love between a daughter and a mother. 

At the heart of South of Midnight’s relationship between Lacey Flood and her daughter, the game’s protagonist, Hazel, is the incredible voice performances (though the rest of the game features great work in VO, too). That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to speak to Adriyan Rae, the voice behind Hazel, over a Zoom call to chat about South of Midnight and her first-ever Golden Joystick Awards nomination, for Best Lead Performer. 

“I was in my house and my daughter was literally pulling at me, and then my phone started ringing,” Rae tells me. “On the phone was my manager, and he goes, ‘I just want to tell you, you’re nominated for a Golden Joystick,’ and I said, ‘Oh my god, that’s so awesome.’” 

Adriyan Rae

Rae recalls that before this nomination, she was recently in a studio that actually had a Golden Joystick award on display. She had no idea she’d be nominated for one in the coming weeks. “It’s so exciting and fun and it’s just an honor,” she says. “I’m so grateful. It’s wonderful.”

Rae is the only Black woman nominated for a Golden Joystick Award this year, and though Black representation in games has become better over the years, there’s still plenty of work to do – Rae’s nomination as the only Black woman is a sign of that. “On one side, it’s sad,” she says. “On the other side, it’s wonderful, right? It’s based on your perspective. On the side of it being sad, these stories deserve to be told. Black women have strong stories and characters that people can resonate with, and they should be able to have their stories told. On the other side, at least this is progress. This nomination shows that.”

Rae says this nomination shows that a lot of people who didn’t think this story would resonate with folks are wrong. “Now look at us, we must have done something right by making a Black female lead,” she adds. “So I think that it’s both those things, but I like to err on the side of gratitude.

“I’m just grateful for the progress, and I hope it shows the heads in charge of creating games and giving people the budgets to make these things that diversity and representation are very important, and we’re not going to lose by choosing to have those things. It’s a step in the right direction of progress, and I’m grateful to be part of that movement.” 

She makes sure to shout out the South of Midnight performance and voice director, Ahmed Best (whom you might also know as the voice of Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequel films), for helping her tap into what makes Hazel so special to her. “I love him so very much,” she tells me. “I’m just in awe of his talent, in awe of how humble he is, and he’s just a phenomenal director and performer [Best also voices Roux in South of Midnight].

“I think what’s so beautiful is that he has this expertise and he can just share it with you without making you feel dumb or less than or like your own expertise isn’t important. He did a really phenomenal job of collaborating and uplifting me and giving me the space to be creative as well. And for that, I’m so grateful, because I think it helps make the characters nuanced and authentic.” 

When I ask Rae about the message of South of Midnight and how it resonates with her in light of this nomination, she explains, “Give people the compassion and grace and love that you would like to receive, and step to them with empathy. I think that’s something that everyone can resonate with, and everyone could use a bit more of in today’s society. When you come from that type of place, no matter where you are and who you are, everybody wants the grace that they give. Everybody wants to feel seen, heard, and understood, and I think that’s what Hazel does along the journey of her becoming and understanding herself. That’s why [South of Midnight] can resonate with so many people.” 

Despite award-nominated success in her first video game appearance (though she tells me it’s her second because her first was never released), at one point, Rae’s vision for her future couldn’t have been more different. She was in college to be a physician assistant and medical laboratory scientist. 

She always loved creating and singing, though, so she’s not surprised life brought her to something like the starring role of South of Midnight. 

After college, she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, which is where she was introduced to acting. Though she’s appeared in various TV shows and movies, including Chicago Fire, The Game, and The Vagrant Queen, to name a few, she recalls her first couple of times on set, working for 15 hours, and still being ready for more. “‘Okay, what’s next?’ I’d ask and they were like, ‘No, we’re going home now,’” Rae says. At the same time, during her scientist job, after 10 minutes, she would wonder when her next break was. That job felt like work, she says, and acting didn’t –  it felt like her passion. Determined to chase that feeling further, she moved to L.A., telling her then-employer, the Los Angeles non-profit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, that if she had an audition, she had to attend. 

She recalls the audition for South of Midnight being completely unrelated to what the game ended up becoming. The character she was asked to portray was hiding in a bar, wearing a hat, looking for a man who was supposed to help her reach a certain place. There was mystery and intrigue, and crying, too, “but none of it was like anything in the game.” Regardless, she did something right and landed the role of Hazel.

Between Rae’s unrelated studying of Gullah and Geechee culture at other points in her life, and her late great aunt’s name also being Hazel – she was a “healer,” too – this role was more than serendipity. It felt made for Rae. “It was just so many things that I was like, ‘This is divinely set up for me to play this character,’” she tells me. 

I mention to her that it’s somewhat surreal talking with her, as she sounds just like Hazel. But I haven’t played South of Midnight since its April launch, and it turns out Rae’s natural voice isn’t quite Hazel’s. I realize that when Rae rises out of her natural Alto range and adds some Southern twang and tells me, “This is Hazel.”

When I ask if there’s any more Hazel within her, she answers with a definitive yes. 

“That journey to self, the journey of accepting that you may have thought you knew who you were, but you’re ever-changing and ever-growing, that resonated,” Rae says. “Her journey, that’s what’s really stuck with me. As I made Hazel, Hazel made me.” 

Rae voices Hazel, of course, and she also provided the mocap for the character. 

She was in the first trimester with her now one-and-a-half-year-old daughter when she did her first mocap session. I tell her I played South of Midnight with my own daughter, born on March 28, just days before the game’s launch, on my lap. Though I’m sure the relationship between Hazel and her mother at the core of South of Midnight would have resonated with childless me, it hit even harder as the credits rolled with my daughter on my lap. 

“It made the journey so much more touching for me because it wasn’t just about me and my mother,” Rae says. “Now, it was like, ‘What about me and her?’ Us being torn apart [like Hazel and her mother in-game], I can’t imagine. It just really made those emotions so much more visceral, so much more raw, and I think it comes across in the performance.”

We joke (though I think we’d both seriously try) that we’d move mountains to save our own daughter as we close out the interview. 

I’m not here to tell you to vote for Rae as Best Lead Performer in the Golden Joystick Awards, though personally, she’s got my vote – I am here to tell you, however, that Rae’s performance as Hazel in South of Midnight is incredible, and it’s for that reason her story will stick with me long after 2025. If you’re so inclined, you can vote for Rae here. 

For more, read Game Informer’s South of Midnight review.